


From Dreams Into Reality

by Chubstilinski



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Belly Kink, Belly Rubs, Chubby Gansey, Chubby Kink, Dream Food, Feeding, Feeding Kink, Food Kink, Friends to Lovers, Hand Feeding, Intimacy, M/M, Stuffing, Weight Gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 18:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12393867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chubstilinski/pseuds/Chubstilinski
Summary: The screen lights up with a message from Gansey.If you're on your way, pick up some burgers.He's not on his way, and it's 1:41 am, but Ronan doesn't hesitate in heading for the BMW. He drives the forty minutes from Singer's Falls to Henrietta, fast enough that with the windows down, he can feel the wind whip across his skin, chasing away the heat in his face and the rolling in his stomach.Ronan does all this while not thinking about why his heart is racing and why every muscle is coiled. Why this happens when Gansey asks him to do something, but it's worse when it's something likethis.





	From Dreams Into Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to the lovely [Donutwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/donutwolf/pseuds/donutwolf/)/[Blackdonuthole](https://blackdonuthole.tumblr.com/) for betaing and cheerleading and making me write when I just wanted to be a lump <3

Ronan feels the phone in his back pocket buzz with a new message, but he ignores it. He loads a glassy pebble into the slingshot he found and fires it at a row of bottles perched on the fence. They twinkle in the light from his fireflies. He misses, and then misses a few more shots before one bottle finally shatters in a satisfying hail of glittering broken glass, and when he finally caves and looks at his phone, the screen lights up with a message from Gansey.

_If you’re on your way, pick up some burgers._

He’s not on his way, and it’s 1:41 am, but Ronan doesn’t hesitate in heading for the BMW. He drives the forty minutes from Singer’s Falls to Henrietta, fast enough that with the windows down, he can feel the wind whip across his skin, chasing away the heat in his face and the rolling in his stomach.

Ronan does all this while not thinking about why his heart is racing and why every muscle is coiled. Why this happens when Gansey asks him to do something, but it’s worse when it’s something like _this_.

He’s good at not thinking about it. His mind goes quieter when he drives fast enough to get his blood pumping on dark stretches of empty roads.

Gansey’s favorite twenty-four-hour burger place is on the way to Monmouth Manufacturing, and Ronan picks up his order, the one he’s had memorized for years. He doesn’t think about the fact that it’s more than doubled since then, but there’s a buzzing under Ronan’s skin that he can’t quite chase away.

When Ronan gets to Monmouth, he parks sideways across three parking spots in the lot, empty but for The Pig. Gansey is on the floor when Ronan gets inside, surrounded by his miniature Henrietta model, small and distant looking in the vastness of the room. Ronan shuts the door and steps closer to him, but Gansey doesn’t look up.

He’s distracted: has a half-painted piece of cardboard balanced on one knee, a bowl of cereal on the other, spoon in his mouth. He has casually windswept, tousled bedhead and glasses perched on his nose.

Ronan’s eyes drop down and float over the curves at Gansey’s waist, his belly, his chest, softened rower’s arms. He usually tries harder to avoid looking, because looking means thinking about it. Confronting the feeling in his stomach when he does.

But sometimes he can’t help himself. Like now, Gansey sprawled on the floor with a freshly emptied cereal box next to his hip, his sleep shirt riding up enough to show a sliver of soft, tanned skin.

When his eyes reach Gansey’s face, Gansey is already looking at him.

“Hey, Ronan.”

Ronan grunts and drops the bag in front of Gansey. He glances pointedly at the cereal and says, “You having a fucking appetizer, Dick? After all the trouble I went through to get you this.”

Gansey flushes and clears his throat. He goes back to painting a door on mini-Henrietta’s newest building. “Didn’t know how long it was going to take for you to get here, and I ran out of cardboard.”

Ronan drops down in front of Gansey, cross-legged on the cool concrete floor of mini-Henrietta’s Main Street. He doesn’t point out that he could have taken the bag out and used the cardboard without eating half a box of cereal.

Gansey puts his wall, paintbrush, bowl and spoon to the side and reaches for the fast food bag before Ronan can. He pulls out a burger, unwraps it and takes a big bite as if he’s still hungry, even though, if Ronan were thinking about it, he’d bet good money he isn’t.

Ronan takes a second too long to get his own food, but Gansey has his eyes shut, savoring the taste, so he doesn’t notice Ronan’s eyes lingering.

Sometimes Gansey looks like a king, regal and nearly superhuman. But sometimes he just looks like a boy. Like someone Ronan could reach out and touch, if he wanted. Through a mouthful of food, sauce dripping down his chin, Gansey says, “Thanks, Ronan.”

In that moment, he’s so far from the infuriatingly-polite, old money, private school golden child, politician’s son Richard Campbell Gansey the Third, that Ronan laughs. He nudges Gansey’s knee with his foot. “Yeah, whatever, Dick.”

Humid air and the white noise of summer nights filters in through the open windows, distant traffic and the pulse of cicadas. It makes Monmouth feel dreamy and surreal. Minutes pass while Ronan doesn’t quite watch Gansey take big, greedy mouthfuls of his burger.

Ronan inhales his own without tasting it, just for something to do with his hands and mouth. He watches Chainsaw perch on pipes and scaffolding up by the ceiling, focuses on the way he can feel the sweat as it drips down his neck, and not on Gansey wiping stray sauce from the corners of his mouth with his thumb and licking it off.

Silence between them usually stretches long and languid, easy as breathing. But it feels charged now, from the tension Ronan is sure he’s radiating without meaning to.

Gansey slurps from his extra large strawberry milkshake, and Ronan’s eyes are drawn, inevitably, to Gansey’s mouth, pink lips wrapped around the straw and sucking down mouthfuls. He finds himself unintentionally watching the swell of Gansey’s belly as if he could see it fill as he sips on his milkshake.

Ronan clears his throat and says, “Gonna get a beer, do you want one?” He springs to his feet and hops over cardboard Nino’s to get to the bathroom, halfway across the room before Gansey can even reply.

“Mmm,” he says, chewing through a mouth full of food. “Yeah, thanks.”

Ronan takes his time standing in front of the fridge, letting cold air ground him into his skin before he picks out two bottles of beer. He opens them and walks them back over to Gansey, who has crumpled up the wrapper from his first burger and started into his second, one hand reaching for some fries. Ronan sits and places the opened beer bottles between them.

He takes several deep gulps of his, but it does little to calm his nerves. It just makes it harder to tear his eyes away from the strip of tanned skin on Gansey’s side where his t-shirt has ridden up a little, his throat as he chugs his beer, the little bit of double chin that shows when Gansey tilts his face down.

Everything about Gansey’s appearance these days nicely showcases the little bit of indulgence he flirts with on nights like this. For as long as Ronan has known him, he has always been solid, athletic, but now he’s freshly-retired rowing team captain ex-jock soft and it’s probably a little fucked up how much Ronan fixates on it. When he lets himself.

Ronan is so busy avoiding Gansey’s eyes, it takes him probably too long to notice Gansey’s been staring at him. He doesn’t stop when Ronan catches him, just keeps looking, assessing. The weight of his direct attention is something Ronan craves, laps up like he’s starving, but it makes him feel like he’s on the edge of being caught.

A part of him wants to be. He’s curious about what Gansey would do if he knew. If he saw the way Ronan looked at him. If it would change anything.

Gansey says, “These fries aren’t nearly as good as the ones from Cafe Greywaren.”

Ronan grins. His favorite nights are the ones when he has enough time to dream Gansey food of his own. If he were thinking about it, maybe it would have something to do with the way it feels more personal, having Gansey eat things he’s created, having him _crave_ them.

“I can’t just dream up shit whenever you want, Gansey.”

But Ronan would, if he could. If he asked.

Gansey says, “I know.” He pats Ronan’s calf in vague apology. “It’s just so much more filling, somehow. And the fries _never_ get cold.” Ronan watches Gansey’s hand shift from his leg to his own belly and feels his heart lurch into his throat.

“You’re not full?”

Ronan just watched Gansey inhale two burgers, fries and a milkshake, and that’s on top of however much cereal he had already eaten before Ronan got here. His belly is bloated, stretching at the soft, thin fabric of his shirt, and he says, “I feel like I could still eat something.”

Gansey climbs to his feet, off center and unsteady. Standing, his belly looks incredibly round. Ronan bites his tongue against the urge to lean in closer, get on his knees, the perfect height to press his face into it.

Gansey goes straight for the fridge and Ronan ignores the swoop in his stomach, forces his voice steady as he says, “What the hell are you doing?”

Gansey holds up a carton of Rocky Road ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. He closes the freezer with his elbow. “I’m getting dessert, what does it look like?”

“Don’t you think that’s a little…” _Greedy. Gluttonous._ “Ambitious.”

“You think so?” Gansey looks delighted by something, eyes glinting and he’s suddenly close, so close, to Gansey-on-fire. Ronan wonders what he would have to do to push him over that edge, strike the match, and what he would do, now, if he were lit up with that spark.

Gansey drops down in front of him, so close their knees touch. Ronan lets his eyes trail over Gansey’s body, and he hopes it comes off as pointed rather than lingering, catching on the rolls at his sides. When he meets his eyes again, Gansey says, “You don’t admire my ambition, Ronan?”

Gansey is peeling off the plastic on the inside of the carton, licking off the ice cream frosted to it, watching Ronan from underneath his lashes.

“I didn’t say that.” It comes out low, almost a whisper.

Gansey grins, sparkling white politician-straight teeth behind the devious turn of his lips. He eats an overflowing spoonful of ice cream and then sets the carton beside him. He balances the cardboard wall of a soon-to-be building on Ronan’s legs, dips a paintbrush in magenta paint, and no matter how careful his brushstrokes, little paint splotches get all over Ronan’s jeans. Gansey does this with the absolute confidence of someone who is truly comfortable with the other person.

Ronan relaxes into the familiarity of it. For a while they sit in silence, Ronan leaning back on his hands, letting his knees prop up half-painted cardboard pieces while Gansey alternates between his painting and huge bites of melty, dripping ice cream.

“Ronan,” Gansey says, paint-splattered fingers clutching cardboard pieces and paintbrushes, “could you do me a favor?”

“Hmm?”

“Could you give me a spoonful of ice cream?”

Ronan is sure he misunderstood. “What.”

“It’s melting, but I’ve got my hands full. You don’t mind, do you?”

Before he can think too much about it, Ronan sits up and reaches for the carton. His heart seizes, but his breath is even, hand steady. He piles the spoon high and brings it in front of Gansey’s face. Gansey leans in close to swallow down the whole spoonful and Ronan is faced with the image of his own hand attached to the spoon in Gansey’s mouth.

He’s surprised by how tangibly _real_ it feels, every detail perfect in its imperfection, but the dreamlike quality to the scene doesn’t escape him. This is far from the first time he’s thought about doing this in moments of weakness. For a heartstopping fraction of a second, he’s afraid he’s going to wake up paralyzed, with a perfect replica of one of their spoons, ice cream-cold and clutched in his hand.

But he doesn’t, and it’s real, he’s awake, and he’s feeding Gansey ice cream on the floor of Monmouth.

Ronan has no way of knowing whether this feels like such an intimate and charged thing because it _is_ , or because it only is for him.

So he holds his breath watching ice cream drip down Gansey’s chin, watching the grin he has to hold back until he swallows, how he can only catch some of the drip with his tongue. “Thanks,” Gansey says.

Ronan gets the distinct feeling Gansey can see right through the disinterest he’s trying to project, but he doesn’t call him on it, so Ronan keeps feeding him as he works. He brings heaping spoonfuls to Gansey’s lips, bright and reddish from the cold, one after the other.

Now that he has to watch, now that he has nowhere else to look, each and every feeling he’s been trying to push below the surface fills him in an overwhelming rush. Every bite Gansey takes from Ronan’s hand feeds his desire, but there’s a guilty ache in his chest even as he tells himself Gansey wanted this.

Ronan’s blood pulses hot in his veins, he’s half hard and Gansey’s work is so close to his lap, but everything narrows down to the point where Ronan’s hand and Gansey’s mouth are separated by only a few inches. Every bite of ice cream Gansey sucks off the spoon feels like a tug in Ronan’s gut.

When it’s almost gone, just a little more left at the bottom of the container, Gansey starts slowing down, making soft little sounds with every bite. Ronan imagines he must be pretty full now, but he doesn’t tell him to stop, so Ronan doesn’t.

Their eyes connect when Ronan feeds him the last liquidy spoonful of ice cream. Ronan holds his breath and doesn’t let go until Gansey’s face pinches, he presses the side of his arm into his belly, and burps behind closed lips.

“Okay, you were right,” Gansey says, a little tightness in his voice. “That was perhaps a bit overambitious.”

“No shit,” Ronan breathes.

“Hey, come on.” Gansey pauses to burp into his fist. “I hadn’t meant to finish the entire container and as I recall, you’re the one who fed me the whole thing.”

Ronan’s heart still trips in his chest, filled with adrenaline and desire, but he manages to scoff and roll his eyes. “For fuck’s sake. You could’ve stopped eating anytime, Dick.”

For the first time in the evening, Gansey looks embarrassed. The kind of embarrassed where his hand slips behind his head and he smiles self-deprecatingly, face blushing soft pink, all _aw-shucks_ , and Ronan hates how much he loves it. How much it makes him ache.

“Well,” Gansey says. He leans into Ronan enough that he can feel Gansey’s breath on his face, his body heat. “You could’ve stopped feeding me.”

Ronan doesn’t say _I didn’t want to_ , but he thinks it goes unspoken in the silence after. Gansey’s eyes are locked on to his, and the expression on his face nearly matches in intensity the one where he’s onto something in his research. The thrill of the hunt, maybe. It makes the hairs on the back of Ronan’s neck stand up, makes his muscles tense, poised.

The moment breaks. Gansey rolls to the side as if to get up and then holds his belly, wincing. “Hmm,” he says, “I might need you to help me up, Ronan.”

Ronan draws in a quick breath, closes his eyes. “Jesus. Fine.”

He climbs to his feet and holds out a hand. Gansey grasps it in a tight, strong grip, and Ronan pulls him to his feet. They stand in each others’ space for a moment, hands clasped. Gansey’s skin is so warm, his palm prickles with heat.

“I’m gonna lay down,” Gansey says. His fingers trail over Ronan’s bare arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. His other hand caresses his swollen belly, trying to comfort it. “Guess I had a bit too much to eat.”

Ronan watches Gansey walk over to his bed, flop down into it and take his glasses off, but he’s unsure of where they stand or what he should do. He wants to climb in that bed after him, but he says, “Get some fucking sleep, Gansey.”

He turns towards his own room, takes a couple of steps, and then Gansey says, “Ronan.” He can recognize the order buried in the word. _Wait_.

Ronan stills and turns his head back to look. Gansey’s propped up on his elbows, stomach rounded in front of him, so full his shirt rides up over the dome of it, acres of smooth, plump skin on display.

There’s a dangerous sort of look in his eyes, and Ronan realizes, not for the first time, that he’d do absolutely _anything_ to see him like that, to have his eyes on him, burning with intensity.

Gansey says, “Come here.”

Ronan’s heart skips and then thunders in his chest. He steps up to Gansey’s bed, hovering beside it, willing his face as blank as he can make it with the heat he feels flooding his cheeks.

This close, Gansey’s pupils are wide and black, swallowing most of the hazel of his irises. His hair is disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it.

Ronan knows what he wants him to do.

Gansey sleeps better, sometimes, with someone else next to him. It goes unspoken between them, and this is the closest he ever gets to asking. Ronan sighs and he’s not sure if it’s out of exasperation or relief.

He walks around the bed, hesitates over whether or not to take off his jeans, but he doesn’t, just slips under the sheets next to Gansey, fully-clothed. He feels unsteady, but he keeps his movements sure.

Gansey is radiating heat.

“Could you do something else for me, Ronan?”

“Why don’t you fucking ask and we’ll see?”

There’s a pause, a couple of seconds, and then Ronan hears an inhalation, like he’s bracing himself. Gansey’s fingers wrap around Ronan’s wrist, tangled through the loops of his bracelets, right over his fluttering pulse. He brings Ronan’s hand to rest on his belly.

On an exhale, Ronan whispers, “What the fuck.”

Gansey’s, “Well, I--” is buried under a gasp right as Ronan squeezes the flesh under his hand, following an instinct. He flicks his eyes up to catch Gansey’s when he hears it. Gansey is wide-eyed and he licks his lips and says, “I thought it would help my stomach ache if, you know...”

“Right.”

“If you don’t mind, of course.”

Does he mind? Ronan looks down at his hand, fingers splayed on Gansey’s belly, and he _wants, needs, craves_ it. The lines of his and Gansey’s friendship have always been blurrily intimate, and it’s hard to figure out where the line actually is, if this is crossing it, or just shifting it when he circles his hand around Gansey’s soft belly, lets his fingers sink into doughy flesh. And the slide into something so forbidden is as easy as breathing.

“Yeah,” Gansey sighs. He drops his elbows and lies on his back, Ronan curved around him. “That’s good, Ronan.”

Ronan shudders with pleasure, closes his eyes, digs his fingers in. His breath is coming out in shallow pants, but he can’t get control of it. Gansey feels so soft, so hot and yielding, all those indulgences that Ronan brought him adding up into this fattened up version of Gansey, and he’s blindingly, achingly human.

When Ronan’s palm presses into the full, rounded top of his belly, Gansey burps and says, “Excuse me. Oh, that feels good.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Gansey,” Ronan bites out. He hides his face in the crook of Gansey’s neck and breathes in the scent of mint. “Shut the fuck up.” It sounds more like begging than he means it to.

Gansey makes a sound that’s caught halfway between being a laugh and a moan. He turns his head to whisper, like a secret, into Ronan’s temple, “I didn’t expect it to feel this good.”

Ronan presses his nose into Gansey’s skin, and barely manages to hold back a sound, turns it into a gasping, harsh breath.

“Ronan.” Gansey slides his fingers to cup the back of Ronan’s head, drags his fingers through his buzzed hair, turns him so they’re eye to eye.

Ronan kisses him like he desperately wants to drag him from his dreams into reality, memorizing the exact feel of his lips, the smell of mint, the way he tastes sweet and how his mouth is still a little cool from the ice cream. But Ronan is devastatingly aware that he’s already awake. Nothing he’s ever created in his dreams has _ever_ matched up to how this feels.

He pulls Gansey by the roll of softness at his hip so they’re pressed flush together, Gansey’s belly spilling into Ronan’s flat stomach and the kiss turns hot and wet and biting. Ronan slides his hand up under Gansey’s shirt, to feel the scorching heat of his skin and the way nearly every inch of him gives under the pressure of Ronan’s hands.

He catches Gansey’s low, rumbling groan on his tongue and something ignites inside him, light bursting from his chest.

Ronan has never felt like this.

Gansey grabs Ronan’s hips as he rolls onto his back, dragging him so he’s straddling one meaty thigh. Ronan pulls back from Gansey’s lips to look at him, and finds him smiling, eyes glinting and heavy lidded.

“That was--” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “That was not exactly what I had in mind, but I appreciate the initiative. Truly.”

“What did you have in mind?” Ronan’s voice is dark and deep, and he resists the urge to clear his throat to even it out, to make himself sound even a fraction less destroyed.

Gansey grabs Ronan’s hands and leads them back to where he wants them: framing the deep shadow of his belly button. Gansey says, “I was serious about that belly rub. I’m going to need it. Especially if you have any… more strenuous activity you’d like me to participate in later tonight.”

Ronan’s face scrunches up in disbelief, even as the thought of it washes over him in a heady rush. “You’re such a fucking nerd, Dick.”

Gansey laughs, and his belly shakes under Ronan’s hands, under the fingers tensing and flexing against supple flesh. He’s beautiful and glowing, delicately rumpled, blissed out and asking for a favor that’s so easy to give, it’s hardly a favor at all.

Ronan is trembling as he kneads Gansey’s body, as he watches his eyes flutter shut in pleasure, feels every soft inch of his belly, uninhibited, unrestricted. He tries to tell himself it’s just Gansey, but there’s nothing _just_ about Gansey. There never was. He’s always been the kind of extraordinary that makes it hard to accept, makes him hard to look at, and even now, _especially_ now, Ronan almost can’t bear it.

“Ronan,” Gansey sighs, and Ronan smoothes his palms very gently over the bloated sides of his stomach, where it’s harder than the rest and overfull. “Yes, that’s good. So good.”

Ronan gasps, dizzy under the heady pleasure of Gansey’s praise. “Harder,” Gansey says. “More.” Ronan puts more weight on his palms, feels the sides of his belly and sweeps his hands over the distended arch curving out under his chest. “There. Yes, oh. There.”

Ronan’s fingers sink into soft fat, all that smooth, pampered, golden skin, and he realizes he’s shaking a little, overwhelmed, blood on fire with the exhilaration of finally, finally getting to touch him.

Gansey’s lips are parted, sucking in deep breaths, and Ronan curves over his body, bracing himself on one arm so he can kiss him, sweep his tongue into his mouth, feel the vibrations of all his pleased little noises against his lips. He keeps his other hand on Gansey’s belly, and he’s grasping, delirious with Gansey’s kisses and the softness of the body underneath him.

He concentrates on making it good, pays attention to every pleased sigh and groan, and keeps up a slow caress until the skin on Ronan’s palm tingles with friction and Gansey’s breath is slow and heavy, his body pliant, his eyelids drooping.

“I’m afraid I might fall asleep on you in a moment,” he murmurs.

He doesn’t say, _you need it_ , or ask when was the last time he slept. He says, “So fucking go to sleep,” and runs his fingers through Gansey’s soft chestnut hair.

Gansey’s brow creases, and he makes a petulant, displeased sound. “Don’t stop.”

Ronan grins, trails his fingers back down Gansey’s chest, down until he can curve his hand around his plump lower belly. Gansey _hmm_ ’s in pleasure, closes his eyes, and after only a few moments, lets out a soft snore.

Ronan’s own eyes drift shut with his face planted in Gansey’s throat, where he’s warm and a little damp with sweat. His hand slows and eventually stops, and a kind of contentment washes over him, something he hasn’t felt in years. A new wave of secrets is out in the open, accepted, and he’s wrapped in the arms of this perfectly imperfect boy, his best friend, _Gansey_.

Ronan is lulled into sleep without fear, and when he dreams, he dreams of him.

 

***

 

Ronan wakes up to the sound of a soft, sleepy voice slurring, “What’s this?”

He’s in Gansey’s bed, he realizes, pressed to his back, arm circled around him. Ronan smiles, presses a kiss to the back of Gansey’s neck, and blinks open his eyes. It’s disturbingly bright, like it always is, morning sun cutting hot beams of light through too many windows.

His hand is gripped around something cardboard rather than Gansey’s belly, and he leans up on one elbow to see what it is.

“Oh, Ronan. You made me a pizza,” Gansey says.

Ronan flushes, hotly. “Looks like it.”

Gansey sits up, so Ronan rests his head on Gansey’s fat thigh as he reaches for a slice. He moans softly around the bite and says, “You beautiful creature. What an excellent start to the day.”

He runs his fingers over Ronan’s head and he shivers, thinking about what he could have done to deserve waking up like this.

He pats Gansey’s belly and teases, “Is that gonna be enough for you, Dick?”

“If you’re still feeling sleepy, I certainly wouldn’t mind if you made more.”

If Ronan had been tired before, he definitely isn’t now. “How about you finish that up first.”

“Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is wondering, Noah took one look at the proceedings and was like fuck this shit I'm out lmao. He'll probably come back to tease them later in the morning. 
> 
> Come join me on the tumbles [@chubstilinski](http://chubstilinski.tumblr.com/)!


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